spritzer

Some 4686A's here: http://www.talonix.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=11984

Just got mine and I dare say I like them a whole lot more than the early units at CJ'10. They aren't Stax but at the used price they give the Lambdas and ESP950 a proper run for their money. Bloody heavy though so Audeze really should look into suspended arc setups. Now the M3 will never be considered the best amp there is so they might get a bit better once I finish the Super-symmetry Dynahi and Dynafet. Time to increase the standing current on the M3 though... Btw. What were Audeze smoking when they came up with this cable? No glue used to secure either the heatshrink or the techflex so it just slides all over the place. Just makes it easier to tear it down and do it properly but still..

I wasn't really referring to 50W/8ohm amps but rather high current capable amps. This does rule out most of the amps out there though, OTL, chipamps, amps claiming to be high current but aren't etc. It's a similar situation to the electrostatics, you can drive them with very low current since in theory they don't need any power but the benefits of ample current supply are clear.

You won't find much about it out in the open but basically people are very unhappy with the sound and Jack offers no solutions. It's clear they just don't get why the amp sounds the way it does and why the GES is a much superior product to these ears. As soon as I get the parts I need and have the psu PCB's made then I'll build my take on the WES and post full schematics. It will never be as good as a properly built ESX though....

Mine are early rev.1 and more importantly, should be here tonight. Kevin tried them on a lot of amps and it is quite clear what these headphones require, current, more current and then some even more current.

Should have been those but there were some issues a while back when they split into SED and Svetlana. The Mullards are better than the Valve Art stuff I got with the old BH though and the "Made in USSR" stuff in the SRM-T2.

Leaning heavily to the left there...

I do hope he stays out of that sector but the allure of selling black boxes for oodles of money with not a whole lot invested can be hard to resist.

No, that would be a certain commercial amp designed to explode your headphones. I think that is the only thing that explains that crap design... This is for dynamic and magneto planar headphones and a way of getting close to a balanced Dynafet performance for not a whole lot of money. So while this can in theory swing enough to drive electrostatics nobody would build it like that (save for somebody wanting to upstage Krell). Recommended PSU is +/-30V.

Could be. The skeptic in me only sees this as a next step to show how inferior all the commercial amps are an then voila, I have this clearly superior alternative at a low, low price...

How about here, just now...

I'd be nervous about this too even if one looks past the rumors of a serious design error in the LF amps. The BHSE will last for as long as the capacitors hold up (15-20 years) and will be good as new once they are replaced. I wouldn't bother with the upgrade. People are not happy with the new WES amps and this is indeed one of the reasons.

The build quality with the modern Quad stuff is indeed a problem. Basic stuff such as the glue to use for the diaphragm isn't all so easy to do correctly and it's clear IAG missed some of the finer points of the ESL63 design. Such as the very frugal British way of having all the circuits of separate PCB's so if one fails you just change that one instead of scrapping the whole thing.

So he bashes Ti to gain some attention, releases some hyped up DIY garbage for the noobs out to prove a point they don't even understand and is now going to focus on a commercial venture? Yup, we called it...

Ehh on this one I believe you just short to ground and the chip shuts off the output. Most chip amps have something like this.

It's not like Stax didn't go down that path before. Anybody remember the Aperio-1 or wtf they were called?

Well pretty much anything can drive speakers (M3 even) but yeah, it can. This thing can swing 400V P-P into a 8ohm load with a massive PSU to match.

I've been talking to one of their reps about this so we'll see what comes of it. If they are indeed at end of life then I'll purchase a supply that will last us a long time.

My whole issue with IAG has to do with zero innovation of the electrostatics because they simply don't have the know how to do so. Adding a strut to a floating frame and simply adding on some extra panels just confirms that. They are still great speakers but that's just because of a truly gifted design. As for Stax, only time will tell how this will play out but I don't really see how they will pull off portable Stax headphones. The amps can be made tiny with modern parts and very efficient drivers but they will never be as convenient as something with a 3.5mm plug...

There are in fact two versions of these connectors out there so this is a known issue.

Makes me proud to be Icelandic...

Aren't they all the same save for some "magic goop"?

Nothing wrong with liking either the Exstata or the EHHA but those designs are both highly compromised and I'd never consider them high end with those specs. The Exstata was in fact a failure IMO since it wasn't cheap, wasn't easy to build, it didn't outperform similarly priced Stax offerings and it wasn't readily available. These were all core values this "Volksamp" was supposed to fulfill but didn't. I do blame myself for some of this since I got fed up with Cavalli's "secret clan" methods and hiding away in hidden forums so I washed my hands of the whole affair. To some this may seem strange coming from "the Don of the Stax Mafia" but the Mafia is all about free flow of information. Not all of it is out in the open but then again not all of the members are forum members. Indeed... Justin.Get.Some.SED's!!!

So he basically has a BS in BS? Explains quite a bit...

Indeed, I didn't even read that "review" until now (somebody posted the weight in one of the meet impression threads). That piece is almost as bad as Skylabs A-10 review...